Before The Morning by Zee Monodee

In this stand-alone prequel to the explosive Corpus Brides romantic
suspense/espionage series, found out how everything started when one of the
agency’s deadliest became the target of a rogue faction.

Before the morning

...is the time of
greater darkness...

A trained killer with
borderline sociopathic tendencies

Rayne Cheltham traced out her life's path when she was
twelve: she would marry her best friend and bear his children, and in the
process, stifle the restless edge in her. When he vows never to marry, she
gives in to the darkness and becomes a clandestine agent—until the day he walks
into her world again, and her carefully fabricated façade crumbles.

A former cop burned by
life and his personal demons

When Ash Gilfoy meets a woman who reminds him of his
childhood best friend, he starts upon a path that leads him down into the abyss
once again. The day Rayne waltzes back into his life, he knows she is his
second chance, and the one who will save him.

Each thinks the other
is their redemption...until they discover how deep darkness goes inside both of
them

The secrets between them make them sit on a keg of gunpowder
with a lit fuse in their hands. Rayne’s whole life is built on a lie, and the truth
is threatening to explode in their faces. But that is not the only menace they
have to face. Someone is out to get Rayne, and she must disclose her secret past
before it is too late.

Can Rayne and Ash survive all that’s thrown in their path?
Can they hang on to the last thread of their relationship, and can they emerge,
still together and still alive, in the morning after the deepest darkness?

Ash blinked. He had to be dreaming. Except that the metal band on his finger felt all too real—heavy, smooth, warm, and tight. He glanced at the ring, then at Rayne. It took two people to get married, and she must be the other half of the equation. He didn’t need to see the glinting, burnished piece of gold on her ring finger to put two and two together.

Except, here, two and two equalled a whole muck up of twisted shit. They were married? Since when? How? And worse, had they consummated the union?

He snorted softly. Who was he kidding? Of course they’d consummated their wedding. The only thing between him and Rayne lately amounted to sex, the strings of their friendship just pale, sketchy ghosts grappling for hold where none existed to be grappled.

As he raked his gaze over her, he caught sight of the deep red hickeys on her neck. The confirmation he sought. Damn. He clearly remembered lowering his head to kiss the unmarred column of her neck earlier during the evening when they’d stopped in front of the Bellagio to watch the play of the water fountains. These love bites had happened sometime between leaving the Vegas strip and him waking up with a headache, and he doubted they’d done the deed in public. They must’ve slept together once back at the house.

The pounding in his head intensified to a persistent throbbing against every square inch of his skull. Seeing this ring on his hand had relegated the pain to oblivion—he’d heard shock could do that to a person.

But, married? “What the hell is this, Rayne?”

His voice sounded flat, and cold. She blinked; her eyes then grew wide, and she parted her lips. He thought he saw the lower lip quiver. She brought her arms up, wrapped them around her in a protective hug.

“I...I knew you’d think we made a mistake.”

The shimmer of tears glimmered in her big, blue-grey eyes. Damn it, she wouldn’t cry, would she? Because of him? He’d just been curt with her, but he’d woken up to find out he’d gotten married. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember getting hitched, or even proposing, or agreeing, to marry her. Bloody hell—most men would’ve gone bat shit ballistic for less.

She gave a small hiccup and brought her hand up to rub her open palm against her nose. Bad signs—she would soon unleash the waterworks. Damn.

“Rayne...” He pulled himself up on the mattress, into a sitting position. Reaching out, he placed his hands on her shoulders and squeezed gently. “Calm down. Just give me a minute here, okay?”

She nodded, let her arms drop to her sides and blinked hard a few times, as if to keep her tears in check.

“Tell me something,” he said as he released her. “Are we really married?”

Zee hails from the multicultural, rainbow-nation island of
Mauritius, in the southern Indian Ocean, where she grew up on the figurative
fence—one side had her ancestors’ Indian and Muslim culture; the other had
modernity and the global village. When one day she realised she could dip her
toes into both sides without losing her integrity, she found her identity.

This quest for ‘finding your place’ is what she attempts to
bring in all her stories, across all the genres she writes. Her heroines
represent today’s women trying to reconcile love, life, & relationships in
a melting pot of cultures, while her heroes are Alpha men who often get put
back into their rightful place by the headstrong women she writes. Love is
always a winner in her stories, though; that’s a given.